jk flesh / prurient - Worship Is The Cleansing Of The Imagination

**Marbled grey vinyl in heavy card jacket - the last ever release on Hydra Head...* Long-running and widely influential American metal label Hydra Head sadly bid us adieu with this split album uniting two generations of noise agitators. Since 1995 the label has maintained a central role in the morphing flux of underground noise, metal and extreme electronics, presenting the world with landmark records such as Sunn 0)))'s debut album and Prurient's pivotal 'Bermuda Drain', among so many others. So it seems fitting that one of the scene's most progressive, open-minded operators should close their final side. Prurient offers three suitably sombre, melancholic sacrifices: the gloaming drones and wrenching metal screech of 'Chosen Books' to open for the marching noise/techno formation, 'Entering The Water' and the particularly poignant closure of 'I Understand You' with its ponderous AFXian melody and pulverized power noise urging you to either cry or smash sh*t up. And who else better to soundtrack HH's end of days than the prolific Justin K Broadrick - otherwise known as part of Napalm Death, Jesu, Godflesh, Techno Animal (etc, etc) - a longtime ally of the label with arguably the finest CV on its roster. Taking in doom D&B slaughter on 'Fear Of Fear' and the droning hard-stepper 'Deceiver', he clocks out with the shuddering, corrugated waves of bass effluence and crushing riffage of 'Obedient Automaton' in a simulated eulogy for the Hydrahead legacy. Highly recommended.

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